catching_the_cusp REAListic optimIST Working on earth healing projects is quite indicitive of the sort of healthy relationship [wo]mankind will facilitate with a more and more inclusive (and less and less external) self if we realize our mutual capacity to become self actualized as the god we are. It is sort of a litmus test to see if we are interacting with the variable pool called "reality" in a conscious, present, honest, positive, self facilitating way. Our successful accomplishment of presence of mind in a consentual and equally facilitative and catylizational relationship with our "environment" is evidenced by the proliferation of life and energy around the individual, and that life and energy's level of interrelation (with as little waste or extraneousness as possible) within and without itself. I realize that I'm trying to articulate the inarticulable here, so I suppose I'll just step back and let this paragraph train wreck. You'll have to forgive me. I've been reading a lot of ecopsychology and deep ecology stuff lately in my efforts to prepare myself for applying to school for Transpersonal Counseling with a focus in Wilderness Therapy with intent to incorporate Art Therapy as well. All of that heady, wordy stuff is spinning around in my brain and this was a gratuitous opportunity to try to express my thoughts into words. I've been active as an activist lately. I've lobbied the State Senate Majority Leader as well as the most environmentally friendly State House Representative in person, interviewed the State Governor, and gotten interviewed about activism against Bush's repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule for an oral history project commemorating the 100th anniversary of Idaho's capitol building. A friend and I are working on video from recent footage for a pilot show to shed some light on the topic of Energy. It's hard not to get swept away in the land of political activism, but I know it's time for me to carve out my life. I won't give up the good fight, but it's nearly time for the application process for Graduate School. I plan to make sure that I've got a healthy life outside of that fight well established. I'm pretty excited about the idea of it being my job to bring people outside of the structure they've constructed in which to live their daily lives and take them into the wilderness, establishing a dynamic relationship within ourselves, within the group, and within the environment, finding the peace and presence of mind so abundantly overflowing during the silent hikes we'll take and while healing or enhancing whatever site is the setting. I'm equally excited about the idea of Transpersonal Counseling, which is on the border of spiritual healing alongside a holistic approach to life counseling. I just bought a plane ticket to attend a seminar about Wilderness Therapy. I wonder if my thoughts about how to engage in Wilderness Therapy are similar to anyone else's? I hope to really get my gears moving now, and will need to if I'm to catch the cusp of that beautiful butterfly I see flitting before me. 050903 ... daf On the cutting edge and in the thick of tomorrow's pioneers and heroes I see R.O. Good. You're preparing folks for the very near future. Follow that feeling. Best of luck at your seminar! 050903 what's it to you? who go blather from